Archive for: weather
- September 29, 2010 5:14 pm
iPad users may be familiar with WeatherUnderground’s “Weather HD” weather app. What sets it apart from your typical weather app is that it doesn’t display everything in your typical list style. Instead, it uses moving backgrounds corresponding to current conditions with the actual forecast/current weather text overlayed on top. It’s a real eye catcher. Unfortunately, iPhone users have been left out in the dark as there wasn’t an equivalent for the small screen — until now.
Weather HD is a completely different animal when compared to your typical weather app. But is it unique enough to justify purchasing it over any one of the other countless weather apps? Gadgetsteria investigates…
As I was sifting through the growing pile of apps that is becoming the Android Market, I stumbled upon one exciting newcomer. For those of you familiar with Beautiful Widgets (the original HTC Sense widget look-alike), you’re going to love Beautiful Live Wallpaper. Building off the newer, redesigned widgets, Beautiful Live Widgets brings all the slick looking weather goodness directly to your home screen by way of live wallpapers.
Form vs. Function. A battle that will never be won. A battle that forever challenges companies and forces them to walk a tight line between the two. Given that certain companies and certain gadgets naturally favor one or the other, what impression to you get when you hear of Columbia developing some USB boots? I would at first think function trumps all, with form taking a nose diving backseat as happens quite normally in the geeky clothing market. But alas, I may be pleasantly surprised…
No, this isn’t some new scheme from Verizon to milk you for more dollars with a new snow white Moto DROID color option. The Snow Droid is a tad more cheery. Quite simply, it’s a replica R2-D2 snowman droid. In the colder regions of the planet (read: most of the US…that means you Floridians too), snow has been falling in a bizarre showcase of unusual cold sweeping the US.
So if you find yourself in one of these unusually cold climates or are a cold weather native, make this year the year you break out of the norm. Make a Snow Droid. Wow your friends, your parents, and strangers with your artistic display or sub-arctic crystalline construction.
Geeky-Gadgets > GearFuse > Geeksir
- December 20, 2009 7:52 pm
Android 2.1 (Flan) may or may not be available (depends on your level of Android hackery) yet but that doesn’t mean you can’t at least have one of the shiny new features 2.1 brings. For 2.1 Google has thrown in a new weather/news widget. It isn’t anything groundbreaking but nonetheless is a nice addition to the stock allotment of widgets.
The weather widget is rather simple and shows the city, current conditions, and temperature while the news widget is a bit deeper allowing customization showing/hiding various news categories and even creating your own. Overall it’s a nifty download worth installing. Get on it folks.
**In order to install the 2.1 Google News/Weather widgets, Navigate to Settings > Applications and check “allow install of non marketplace apps”.
- Download Android 2.1 Google News/Weather widgets from DroidForums
Download it and give it a go.
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- December 17, 2009 9:45 am
After my colorful rant voicing my displeasure for HTC’s move to C&D LevelupStudios and their “Beautiful Widgets” which mimicked the Sense UI widgets, I was mad, sad, and frustrated. But a few obscure, hidden gems on AndroLib highlighted by one eagle-eyed Phandroid commenter digs up some dirt that could very well make me eat my words.
The three test applications in the picture above show nothing more than a “test” application put forth by HTC themselves. Awesome, what’s the significance? The HHHTest app in particular was given a deeper glance by that eagle-eyed commenter and was found to house the following verbiage:
com.htc.rosiewidgets.sample
On the surface it doesn’t look like much. But if you recall waaaaaay back in June, prior to the Sense UI release, Sense UI was actually called by it’s internal code name — “Rosie”. So “Rosie Widgets” as highlighted in the sample HHHTest widget would lead a cognitive mind to speculate that HTC is close to pushing out HTC widgets for non-HTC devices. Consider me intrigued and excited.
If a price tag is attached, hopefully it’s not something too absurd like $4.99 for the popular weather + flipclock combo. Although, even with Beautiful Widgets last version — weather animations and other refinements — it wasn’t quite as good as HTC’s variant. Perhaps $2.99 or $3.99 would be a better approach.
Oh HTC, you sure do toy with my emotions…
Android Central
- December 16, 2009 10:08 am
You know, I’m not an “anti-protect your property” kind of person. I understand credit is needed where credit is due. With that said, the sad and downright maddening circumstances surrounding by far the best weather widget on the Android Market — Beautiful Widgets by LevelupStuios — are enough for me to voice my displeasure here. Time and time again we see companies wasting corporate dollars and time pursuing stupid ass lawsuits that won’t benefit anyone.
With that past us it is with great sadness that I announce HTC sent LevelupStudios a C&D over Beautiful Widgets. It was a nicely designed Weather + Clock widget that mimicked HTC’s widget found on Sense UI supported Devices. LevelupStudios used their own know-how and help from a few other outside developers to create their own version allowing non-HTC devices to share in the same weather + time sexiness their HTC toting brethren enjoy. In all honesty, a lawsuit because the two products were extremely similar isn’t all that surprising, however, I as well as many others expected HTC to ignore it as it’s not going to do any financial harm to HTC. No one is going to by a non-HTC device simply for Beautiful Widgets.
The only stipulation I can find fault with in LevelupStudios is that they were charging and therefore profiting on a design that even though was coded in-house, was a more or less copy of HTC’s weather widget. Even still, HTC could have added a clause that said either reduce Beautiful Widgets to free or remove it from the Android Market completely. That would have been a much better option. At $0, even less harm (read: none at all) would have been done to HTC or their profit margins and non-HTC users could still rock the weather + clock widget. Now I as well as countless Beautiful Widgets users are going to have to find illegitimate ways of getting the same style and functionality on our devices. If you’re a new Android user whom doesn’t use an HTC device, I’d pick up a copy of Beautiful Widgets now before it is removed from the store.
Nice job HTC. Now you simply come across looking like a typical corporate asshole.
Android Central
- September 15, 2009 6:05 am
Have a craving for real time information such as the actual time, temperature, humidity and the current weather conditions? The consumer market place is flooded full of these multi-purpose gadgets that tell us these bits of information with some doing much more. Though often times, the more features the get crammed in, the price goes higher while the quality falls lower. Such a sad balance it is. Moving on, if you’ve ever looked at these various time/weather stations and thought that they were functionally sound but looked as if they were styled (or lack thereof) by someone who flunked out of design school, the Wood Station Clock may just surprise you. Featuring smooth lines and a rather neutral, natural wood styling, this particular station is actually pretty appealing. The cool part of course is that it is all made out of wood yet is illuminated from the inside. Hardly a new novelty, though still cool to see none the less. So far all of you that need to know the detailed weather forecast and that little thing we all care so much about, Mr. Time, the Wood Station Clock may suit your fancy. Now you’ll just have to play the waiting game — October/$175.
- February 11, 2009 8:27 am
If you are an avid weather fan or, just like to know whats going on in times of toil and trouble (meteorologically speaking), Verizon and WeatherBug have teamed up to help you out. WeatherBug Protect is a service that you can purchase (it’s Verizon) that will provide you with the most relevant, up to date weather information. Information including: advanced warning of lighting, tornados, temperature extremes, floods, high winds, hurricanes, nuclear apocalypse and so much more all through a text message. Being that it is Verizon they will ding you to the tune of $5.99/month. I understand “dumbphones” and their dumbnesss not having the ability to use WeatherBug by other means such as a mobile website or app, but charging $5.99 for some text messages you already pay for doesn’t seem like the greatest deal in the world. Oh well, you be the judge Mr. Closet weather man. For a lot more words to potentially woo you over check out the product page on WeatherBug’s site.
Source: Slashphone
